


Its Okay To Not Be Okay

by masterroadtripper



Series: Get Up, Try Again [2]
Category: I Can I Will I Did (2018)
Genre: Depression, Domestic Fluff, Foster Care, Foster Family, Injury Recovery, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past severe bullying, Past severe injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:30:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25120132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterroadtripper/pseuds/masterroadtripper
Summary: Three years after the events of the movie, Ben and Tom are dating and have moved in together.  Just a sweet, domestic Saturday morning shared between two boys that love each other with every piece of their hearts
Relationships: Ben/Tom (I Can I Will I Did)
Series: Get Up, Try Again [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1825243
Kudos: 1





	Its Okay To Not Be Okay

The sun was shining through the window of their small apartment as Tom blinked his eyes open. Rolling onto his back, he looked at the light on the ceiling and smiled, remembering that it was Saturday and he got to spend a whole two days, uninterrupted, with Ben. When he’d gotten kicked out of the Police Academy all those years ago, the last place he could have ever imagined he’d be now was laying in bed next to one Benjamin Hirsche. The beautiful brown haired boy who’d stolen his heart three years ago when they were paired together on the sparring mat for the first time.

Turning his head to look at Ben, Tom smiled at the soft look that covered his features when he was sleeping. Calm and content, unlike the faint frown he always carried on his face when he was awake, his brain unable to truly let him forget his past. When Ben was sleeping and not being tortured with nightmares, he looked so much younger than he was. His hair, now an even length, had been growing out over the time they’d known each other and was pooled over his shoulders. As much as Tom wanted to reach out and smoothe the hair away from his face so he could see Ben's features, Tom didn’t want to wake him. His sleeping beauty.

Closing his eyes, a smile spreading across his own features, Tom remembered the first time they met. Ben had been sitting in Grandmaster Khang’s office, looking over pictures in photo albums when Tom had watched into the Dojang that afternoon. He’d thought it was going to be a normal day. A little bit of sparring, maybe he’d get to train a little one-on-one with Grandmaster Khang, but then when he’d poked his head into the office to say good afternoon, he’d seen a tall skinny boy sitting across the desk. His hair had been barely brushing his shoulders, legs encased in the bulkiest braces that he’d ever seen and a pair of crutches were leaning against the window sill.

Then Grandmaster Khang had told Ben to go find a uniform from the basement and join them out on the mat once he’d gotten changed. He watched Ben grab his crutches, though, not really using them, and heading towards the basement stairs. A few minutes later, a uniform on top of his t-shirt and boxers, his braces on over the pants, the boy with the shaggy brown hair walked onto the mat in his bare feet, tugging a hair elastic from his wrist to tie up his hair. Tom remembered wondering how long Ben would have to be wearing those braces. Wondering how long he had been wearing them, his limbs thin and frail looking from what had to be a lack of movement.

He’d assured Ben that he’d go easy on him, but, as they started training, he watched as Ben’s eyes started focusing less and face paling every time he took him down onto the mat with a thud. Initially, Tom had wondered if he was hurting him. He was about to ask Ben if he wanted to take a break, if he was hurting him, when he went stiff on the mat, his eyes trained on the glass door. Suddenly, Ben pulled himself to standing and hobbled towards the door, eyes wide and looking like a shocked deer. He was about to run after Ben, bring him back inside before he hurt himself, but Grandmaster Khang beat him to it.

After that, Ben hadn’t been paying attention, it seemed, and Tom had been paired off with someone else while Grandmaster Khang told him to calm down over by the mirror. Ben had looked dejected at the time, but as he struggled to a sitting position, braced legs out in front of him, Tom watched out of the corner of his eye as he dug his thumbs into the muscles of his thighs as if they were very sore. They probably were, Tom thought in hindsight.

Beside him, Tom felt Ben stir, rolling over in his sleep to face Tom, his hair falling into his face, shifting with every huffing breath that he took. Looking back at his sleeping boyfriend, he remembered when he asked Ben out. They’d known each other for close to a year when he’d asked Ben to go on a date for the first time. It was simple, really. Crossing paths at the supermarket, and not for the first time, Tom had swallowed down whatever he had been scared about for the past year of knowing Ben and had just...asked.

He didn’t know what he was expecting, he really didn’t, when he had asked Ben out. Considering he knew that Ben had dated Grandmaster Khang’s granddaughter for a little while, though, after Adrienne’s last hospital visit, they’d broken up and decided that it wasn’t exactly for either of them. Tom was surprised that Ben said yes. And it turns out that eating ice cream on a pier was better with two people than just one.

They hadn’t been dating for long when Tom had asked Ben to move in with him, and, while he, once again, didn’t know what to expect, Ben had accepted with a massive smile, hug and a flurry of kisses across his face. Moving out of his foster mother’s apartment for the second time, Tom pushed aside more space in his drawers for Ben to add more clothes than were already left in there with a massive smile. For the first time in his life, falling asleep and waking up beside someone actually felt right. Not like a massive massive mistake. Because it wasn’t. He knew for certain that this was not a mistake.

“Tom, you’re staring at me,” Ben’s sleep roughed voice said with a small laugh, shaking Tom out of his thoughts as he rolled onto his side to face him. Hair pushed away from his face, bare shoulders just poking out of the blanket, Tom leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to Ben’s lips. It wasn’t long, and it wasn’t particularly deep, but it was the morning. They had the whole rest of the day.

“You’re just so good looking darling,” Tom said, barely pulling away from Ben.

“Mmmm, do you need to put your reading glasses on?” Ben muttered, trying to roll away onto his back. Tom reached out and snagged Ben’s shoulder just in time, the still-too-thin layer of skin between his hand and the bones of his boyfriend’s frame preventing him from making it all the way onto his back.

“Ben...what did Dr. Sherman say about those kinds of thoughts?” Tom prompted him.

“They’re not good,” Ben muttered, casting his eyes down towards the bed sheets between them.

“Yeah. Because they’re not true and you are beautiful, inside and out,” Tom said, wrapping Ben up in his arms and pulling him tight. Pressing his nose into Ben’s hair, he muttered, “I love you Ben.”

“Love you too Tom,” Ben replied, nuzzling into Tom’s chest. He’d said once that it made him feel safe. And, well, that filled Tom’s heart because he made someone feel safe. He made Ben feel safe. It was all he could have ever wanted.

“Feeling okay?” Tom asked quietly as he ran his thumb over the shoulder blade that he was still touching.

Even now, over three years after the accident, Ben still needed low doses of pain medications and a topical cream to keep the pain in his battered legs down to a manageable level and mornings were always the worst. Tom knew that Ben wouldn’t deliberately go and get his meds until he was in excruciating pain, so he would just straight up ask, because he’d learned very early on that Ben was a horrible liar.

“Kinda sore I guess,” Ben replied, reaching down with one arm and grasping the thigh of his right leg - the one with the previously shattered femur and tibia from those damn bullies. Tom wished he could go back in time and protect seventeen-year-old Ben, but he didn’t even know him back then. They only met after Ben had been in the hospital for six months and there was nothing that Tom could do to change the past.

“Do you want your meds now?” Tom asked gently.

“I’m fine,” Ben muttered, but Tom believed him, that he wasn’t putting himself in danger or in pain any longer than needed.

“We have to go to Maria’s today,” Ben added, looking up and untucking his head a little as Tom rolled onto his back. Resting his head in the center of Tom’s chest, he dragged his fingers through Ben’s hair. Of course they had to go to Maria’s today. It was Saturday after all.

“Not till lunch,” Tom replied.

He loved Maria. He really thought that she was a lovely lady and of course, hadn’t given up on Ben while he spent all those months in the hospital. And, Ben’s foster sisters were adorable, all three of them now taking lessons with Grandmaster Khang as well, so really, he knew them pretty well, even before he and Ben had officially started dating.

“I guess,” Ben muttered, rolling and placing himself more firmly on top of Tom and giving him a real kiss, “we can’t stay in bed all morning.”

“Nope,” Tom replied with a smile, pressing another kiss to Ben’s lips, “gonna have to shower and eat breakfast.”

“Not hungry,” Ben complained, rolling off of Tom and onto his own back, thin arms sprawling out on either side of him, a move Tom now knew as frustration. What Ben was frustrated with, Tom couldn’t exactly puzzle through, but he wondered if it was his recent prescription change that was messing with his stomach.

“Shower first?” Tom offered, throwing back the sheets and pushing himself to sitting, he looked over at Ben, still sprawled like a pale starfish between their navy blue bedding.

Multicoloured eyes trained on the roof, Tom could almost see the gears in Ben’s head-turning as he weighed his options. Shower, eat or both. Before meeting Ben, Tom never understood the kind of effort a decision like that took for someone who was mentally ill. Ben explained it to him once. An internal battle with his emotions every time he wanted or needed to do something. Perpetually.

“Yeah, okay,” Ben replied, rolling off his side of the bed and gently using it to push himself to standing.

His legs just weren’t like they used to be. While Tom had never known Ben before his accident and he’d only ever really seen his recovery, from what Maria had told him, Ben loved sports. While he still did taekwondo - they both did - supposedly, before his accident, Ben danced. There were very few pictures from that time - none that Maria had taken - but Tom could picture it, even if Ben never talked about it.

Tom led the way to the bathroom, running the water briefly before pulling the peg on the faucet to make the water run out of the shower head. Steam filling the bathroom, Tom pulled the string on his sleep shorts and let them fall before getting ready to climb into the shower. Turning, he saw Ben standing in the doorway to the washroom, neither in the room nor out. As if he couldn’t decide what he was planning on doing.

“You coming?” Tom asked, stepping under the spray of the shower and letting it wet down his hair, “Shower now or Maria will make you do it when we go over. Your hair is greasy. Don’t think she won’t notice that.”

Ben shrugged, seemingly seeing the logic behind that idea as he stepped into the bathroom while closing the door behind him. Stepping out of his sweatpants, Ben stepped into the shower carefully, still not entirely steady on his feet. Under the spray of the shower, Ben’s wet down hair looked almost black, hanging just below his collarbones.

Leaning forwards and pushing Ben’s hair away from his face, Tom whispered, “hey you,” followed by a gentle ‘boop’ to the nose.

“Hi,” Ben replied, a genuine smile crossing his face for the first time that morning with Tom’s goofiness. If there was one thing that could lift the younger man’s mood, it was Tom goofing around.

“Your hair needs a wash,” Tom said, reaching behind him to grab the bottle of baby shampoo. For some reason, Ben was unwilling to let go of the brand of shampoo that he used at Maria’s house. The only foster family that had ever been anything close to a real family for him. A last minute, last case scenario placement that, in Ben’s opinion, had saved his life. Tom didn’t doubt him for a minute.

“Need to do it more often,” Ben muttered, letting Tom squeeze a quarter sized blob of shampoo into his outstretched hand before dragging it through his hair.

Tom actually didn’t mind the smell of the baby shampoo anymore. It smelled like Ben. At first he hadn’t cared for the smell, it wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t his favorite. Then, gradually, he began associating the smell with Ben. When he pressed his nose into his taller boyfriend’s hair at night before going to bed, or when he was wrapped in Ben’s long arms after a long day at work. It was a comfort smell now. Something Tom was fairly certain he would always associate with Ben.

“Or Maria will threaten to cut it all off again,” Tom said jokingly. He remembered Ben saying that Maria would always threaten to give him a haircut anytime that she saw him trying to leave the house without brushing it. Though, he also knew that Ben found his long hair as a sort of safety blanket and that joking about cutting it off was a treading on thin ice.

“Nah,” Ben said, pressing the shampoo into his wetted down hair, “Maria would never actually do that.”

“I didn’t think so,” Tom replied, pressing a kiss into Ben’s lips before grabbing the bar of soap off its tray and scrubbing down his own face.

As he touched his hands to his cheeks, Tom made a mental note to shave once they were done in the shower and remind Ben to do the same. While Tom could grow facial hair considerably better, quicker and more noticeably than Ben, he still thought that Ben could use a shave. Especially considering they were going over to Maria’s.

“I’m turning into a prune,” Ben said with a chuckle once he’d washed out his hair, showing his wrinkled fingers to Tom.

“My beautiful prune then,” Tom said, smiling at Ben as he gently reached out and placed his hands on the taller boy’s soft shoulders.

Using Ben’s shoulder’s so he could spin him around, Tom pulled Ben into his embrace, being careful not to throw him too off balance. Ben’s back against his front, Tom held him close, and while it wasn’t as comfortable as laying together in bed, Tom could feel Ben’s heartbeat slowing to a much safer pace.

“You’re warm Tom,” Ben said, throwing a smile over his shoulder as he placed his larger hands on Tom’s, just holding them and Tom realized in that moment that if they weren’t standing under the spray of a shower that was guaranteed to start getting cold at any moment, they’d probably never end up leaving their apartment.

There was nowhere else he’d rather be than having Ben folded into his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) The movie I Can I Will I Did is super unknown and yet it is incredibly inspirational and moving, hopefully, this gets it even a little bit more publicity than it already has.  
> a. this is a link to its IMDB page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5186608/  
> b. this is a link to its trailer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltfjvKqJdT4
> 
> 2) If you (somehow) stumbled across this story and have taken the time to read it, I thank you very much for taking a chance and I hope you are able to get a chance to watch this awesome movie. It is very much so worth the 1:46:00 minutes of your time.


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